Messianic, whether it is seen in one, in many, or in all of Israel, Messianic in that it is indispensable in the members of the ideal community.

The Messiah can be called a servant because to the prophets service was the law of the ideal society. This principle is an essential sociological truth, and it is in the Old Testament that it is found. But a right principle in a wrong place is a calamity, and in this respect also the teaching of the Old Testament is in accord with the profoundest social philosophy. The fifty-third chapter of Isaiah is in its proper place in the prophetic literature. In the Pentateuch it would be a failure. It is ethical not legal. As expressive of the principle the verb "serve" is not found in the imperative mood, and is oftenest used in the first person. It is God's own law for nature and for society, worthy the attention of the thorough student of social problems.

ARTICLE II.

THE RELATION OF CORPORATIONS TO PUBLIC

MORALS.1

BY THE REV. WASHINGTON GLADDEN, D. d., LL. D.

THE Corporation is closely connected with the political, the industrial, the educational, and the religious interests of the people: its origin is political; it is a creature of legislation; and its work reaches out into the realms of production, of commerce and exchange, of learning, of philanthropy, of religion. Many of our great manufactories are conducted by corporations; all our railroad companies are corporations; so are our banks, our private charitable institutions, most of our colleges, and all of our churches. The question of the nature, the power, the limitations of corporations thus at once appears to be a question of the most vital and far-reaching importance. Our material prosperity may be said to be almost wholly in the keeping of these institutions; our intellectual development is largely dependent upon them, and it is easy to see that the standards of public morality must be powerfully affected, for good or ill, by their transactions.

What is a corporation? "A corporation," says Judge Cooley, "is a body consisting of one or more natural persons, empowered by law to act as an individual, and continued by a succession of members. If it consist of but one member at a time it is a corporation sole, if of two or more it is a corporation aggregate. Bishops, parsons, and vicars of the Church of England are corporations sole, but in the United States few if any exist."

The King of England is also a corporation sole; the 1 Read at the Oberlin Summer School of Christian Sociology, June 26, 1895.

kingly powers and prerogatives which he assumes at his coronation are regarded as immortal; they do not die when the king dies; his successor is king as soon as the breath has left his body. "The king is dead! long live the king." The English parson, in possession of the living of a parish, is also a corporation sole. The tithes are due to the office of the parson, to the impersonal entity which is still holding the place, after the parson dies, and before his successor is inducted. These legal fictions, as Judge Cooley says, are not familiar to Americans; we know nothing of the existence of such an artificial person as the corporation sole. The corporation aggregate is, however, an everyday acquaintance; we can scarcely take a step in life that we do not encounter him; he is the servant of our convenience, the minister to our wants, the purveyor of our pleasures; and if, sometimes, his hand is laid heavily upon us, the pressure is so slow and gradual that we are scarcely aware of the source from which it comes.

Corporations are public or private. The government of a village or a city is a public corporation. All citizens who are voters are members of these corporations; the officers chosen by them are officers of the corporation. A manufacturing company like the Singer Manufacturing Company, or the Pacific Mills at Lawrence, is a private corporation. The holders of the stock are members of the corporation. If you sell your share of stock to me, you cease to be a member, by that act, and I become a member. The voting in such corporations is by shares. The holder of a hundred shares has a hundred votes; the holder of ten shares ten votes.

There is also a class of quasi public corporations, among which are national banks and railway companies. The fact that national banks are subject to the constant inspection and surveillance of the government, and that all their operations are carefully regulated by law, clearly indicates their public character. Still more evident should it be that rail

roads are not, though they often assume that they are, private corporations. They are public highways, as truly subject to the power of the state as are our public roads and our city streets.

These artificial persons, called corporations, created by the state for certain purposes, are very curious entities. There is nothing exactly like them in the heavens above nor on the earth beneath. It takes not a little subtlety to define their nature and comprehend their powers. "We are not likely," says Mr. Edward Isham, "to exaggerate in our conception of the distinctive personality of these mythical beings who are nevertheless actual members of the community. They may perform nearly all the acts that natural persons may, but these are in no sense the acts of their various members. They act by their respective names and corporate seals, not by the persons who compose them. In the language of Lord Coke, 'a corporation is invisible, immortal, has no soul, neither is it subject to the imbecilities or death of the natural body.' These words have attracted animadversion, but they are substantially accurate. If all the members are collected, one does not see the corporation. It may be sued, but if every member appear the corporation has not answered the writ. It may own property, real and personal; but the members will have no property nor any right in any part of it. It may owe debts of which the members owe nothing. . . . It is a citizen of the state by whose sovereignty it is created, and its action is determined by the mere majority of its members. All the members, however, may change, but it remains unchanged. They may succeed one another indefinitely; so that they may die, but the corporation remains immortal."

This impersonal person, this unmoral agent, this fictitious immortal is, you may safely conclude, a creature that will bear studying, and watching. When such a prodigy is let loose in society there will be consequences, depend upon it! Do you think that you could foretell exactly what it would do?

If you study its natural history inductively, by trying to observe and record its habitat and its habits, you will come upon some very curious and interesting facts. You will find, to begin with, as I have already suggested, that it has been a very useful creature. Under domestication and proper control it has been taught to bear many of the burdens of society, and to guard its highest interests. In the sphere of education, for example, what could we have done without this creature of law, the corporation? For the maintenance of great institutions of learning vast sums of money must be collected, land procured and held by firm title, buildings erected, funds endowed; and there are thus great accumulations of property to be held and administered from generation to generation. What other device for the custody and care of these great and permanent institutions could be so simple and effective as that of the corporation? The law establishing the corporation sometimes names the trustees who shall hold the property, always prescribes the general use to which it shall be put, and empowers the trustees to fill vacancies in their own number. This is an instance of what is called a close corporation; and under organizations of this kind the greater part of the educational and philanthropic work of this country has been done. The necessity of some such legal machinery as this for the administration of great schools and great charities, and the perpetuation of institutions of learning and benevolence, is sufficiently obvious.

The indebtedness of the church to this device is equally great. The church must have property; its property must be placed in some custody; provision must be made for transmitting it from one generation to another; and it would be difficult to hit upon any other way of securing it than that of incorporating the church (or the ecclesiastical society associated with it), and committing the property and the financial affairs of the church to the trustees of this corporation.

The industrial, the commercial, and the financial inter